TIMO MULLEN
“St Ives harbour is not really the first spot you think of for epic wave sailing in Cornwall, there is a reason for that, it hardly ever happens! I’d say St Ives harbour is one of the most fickle wave sailing spots in the UK. Some say there is a die-hard St Ives harbour local who is now buried under 20ft of sand as he waited patiently on the beach for it to work again since his last session! As is the norm though, good things come to those that wait and St Ives harbour on its day is one of those rare wave sailing gems in the UK worth waiting for. As with most mystical epic breaks it needs a myriad of weather combinations to happen – tide, swell and a very, very narrow wind angle. With the mother of all El Nino winters we knew that one of the many super storms hitting the UK would bring a window of opportunity towards St Ives. I’m lucky that I can now see the harbour at St Ives with binoculars from my house at Gwithian. The swell at Gwithian this day was pretty chunky but howling onshore, but I could just see the tell-tale feathering of waves reeling off from the harbour wall at St Ives, maybe we were going to get lucky!
We already knew that Praa Sands was pumping on this day, but to miss a session at St Ives when it so rarely breaks was not going to be an option, this was our chance and we were going to take it! Almost the best part on arriving at the spot is the view you get looking down on the break, it looks like some sort of magical point/reef break in an exotic location rather than moody Cornwall in the depths of winter. We had a great crew in attendance: PWA Head judge Duncan Coombs, Blacky and myself. All of us were frothing at the bit to hit the water but none of us had bargained for the crazy wind, it was nuking! Duncan’s smallest sail was a 4.5m so I did the noble thing and lent him my 4.0 while I went for a 3.7, but even these sails were going to be too much. When you sail St Ives you actually sail the break in what appears as cross onshore but as you come in on a swell the wave refracts to dead side shore and sends a perfect reeling, almost barrelling wave all the way down the reef/sandbar. The wave is pretty heavy so you have got to be in the right place at the right time, something I saw Duncan do 30% of the time, the other 70% he was so deep and late but as always with Duncs, he still tried to hit it! All well and good but I was watching my beloved Severne Blade 4.0 take one hell of a kicking, maybe he didn’t hear me when I said to look after it! Luckily both the sail and Duncs were strong enough and survived, but fair play Duncan took pretty much every decent wave that rolled in, he was charging!
Quite a few times on this day I did question our sanity, we were sailing blitzed on our smallest sails in one of the biggest swells of the year, it was probably 7 degrees at best and if anything had happened we were at the mercy of the sea. Think mast and a half high swells on the outside, but to make it back upwind to the break you had to sail about 1/2 mile out to sea, for sure there were a few squeaky bum moments!! The other element the photos will not reveal is the current that day, I’d estimate the current drifting downwind as the tide filled in must have been at least 5-6 knots, so waterstarting after a wipeout had to be fast otherwise you were immediately heading straight downwind into ‘no man’s land’! It wasn’t the most epic session I have ever had at St Ives harbour but for sure the most extreme! If the wind had been just a tad lighter the waveriding would have been slightly more controllable but still there were a few moments of gold that may find me joining that stubborn local on the beach ready for my next session there!”